Our second day in Iceland was spend touring the Golden Circle, which is the most popular tourist route in Iceland.
After a lovely breakfast in Hotel Orkin in Reykjavik, we drove to the nearest supermarket. We were told that Bonus supermarkets are the cheapest. I stared at the choices of ham and tried to discern which one contained the fewest chemicals, while trying to convince T to stop repeatedly opening and closing the automatic door. Icelandic is a Germanic language, so it was relatively easy to figure out most of the ingredients. Also, many chemicals and preservatives have numbers for names. We spent $22 for bread (brauð), ham (skinka), cheese (ostur), peanut butter (hnetusmjör), and apples (epli). After the fact, I wished we had bought more because once leaving Reykjavik, supermarkets were few and far between.
Þingvellir
The weather was drizzly as we drove out of Reykjavik. After about half an hour, we pulled off the road into a gravel parking lot in Thingvellir National Park. We hiked over lava rocks, down rock steps and a very slippery ice-covered path into a fissure with moss and high volcanic rocks on both sides. I didn’t know it at the time, but we were hiking through the Stekkjargjá Fissure. This is the seam between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. They are pulling apart at a rate of up to 20 cm per year. Side note: I am so happy that I took pictures of every sign we came across, or I would never have recalled the names of all the things we saw (or been able to research them later). Once the path was clear from ice, the kids, happy to be out of the car, raced ahead to what turned out to be the Öxarárfoss waterfall. As would occur often on this trip, this unplanned stop turned out to be wonderful.
We drove down the road a bit and stopped at a visitor’s center for some warm beverages and to use the toilets. The cashier showed us a map and patiently explained (the Icelandic people are wonderful!) that we needed to go back the way we had come because the road through the park was closed and we had driven past the turnoff for Þingvellir (the parliament fields) anyway. We backtracked and paid $5 to park among the throngs of tourist busses and monster truck-sized 4x4s. The make-shift visitor’s center was mobbed, so we didn’t go in. (You also have to pay to use the toilets here.) We walked downhill on the well-maintained path, through a fissure to the site of the parliament fields and Lögberg (Law Rock). The Althingi, the Icelandic national parliament, was founded here by the Viking settlers of Iceland in 980 A.D. and is the oldest still-functioning parliament in the world (it met at this location from 980 until 1798). The Althingi also assembled here in 1944 when Iceland declared its independence from Denmark. Þingvellir National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A bit further down the path was a small falls and river, which was where some women were executed by drowning (men were beheaded). The girls learned all about Vikings and the Althingi before we left for Iceland, so I was hoping they would enjoy seeing the actual site. Unfortunately, it was hard to figure out where the actual site was, there were too many other tourists, and T was tired of walking, so none of us got much out of it.
Geysir
The drive from Thingvellir took about an hour, so it was 4:45 in the afternoon by the time we reached Geysir. I had heard there was a museum here, but we couldn’t find it and it may have already been closed for the day anyway. The geothermal area is across the street from the visitor’s center. A short walk brought us past some hot springs and to the Strokkur geyser. We only had to wait a few minutes before it erupted in an unexpected, violent burst. Its eruptions reach heights of 25-35 meters. The original Geysir geyser (called Geysir) now erupts only sporadically, but reaches heights of 70-80 meters. For reference, the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park erupts to heights of 25-55 meters. It erupted again about 2 minutes later, then again about 10 minutes later. T loved the geyser! The kids wanted to wait for another eruption, but it we were quickly losing daylight and I had one more stop planned for the day.
I got money out of the ATM here. Iceland is pretty much a cashless society, but I thought it might come in handy. It didn’t. I had to remember to pay with cash and we ended up losing money by doing so because we had bills and coins left over.
Gullfoss
It was only a 10-minute drive to Gullfoss waterfall. It was impressive. The falls is viewable from a platform above it. We didn’t walk down to the lower platform. Perhaps we would have enjoyed it more if it hadn’t started snowing and if we hadn’t visited it at the end of a long day. We stopped in the visitor’s center to warm up, use the toilets, and look for Icelandic flag pins. I’ve been trying to collect small, flag pins from the countries we visit. It was dark by the time we started the 30-minute drive to our accommodation.
Reykholt
Our accommodation for the night was at The Old House Fellskot, a family-run guesthouse on a horse farm. It was relatively easy to find, on Highway 35, just north of Reykholt. The family’s pre-teen son answered the door and attempted to check us in, but the room he gave us only had 2 beds. Not a problem, as we just asked him where we could go for dinner nearby and said we’d be back later. Café Mika in Reykholt was a lovely place. The prices were fairly typical for what we experienced in Iceland. We shared pizza, the kids ordered off the kids’ menu, and we each enjoyed a piece of handcrafted chocolate for dessert. Total cost for dinner was about $60. We returned to the guesthouse and were checked in by the older sister, this time receiving the key for a room with 4 beds. The very clean, nicely decorated guesthouse is a separate building from the family’s house. It has 3 bedrooms upstairs, a bathroom on the main level, and a full kitchen in the basement. The doors are charmingly short, so it may have originally been a farmhouse. The room was about $140 for the night. The kids were up until midnight, anxiously waiting for T to turn into a werewolf. You can read more about that here.
To be perfectly honest, although I loved Iceland and can’t wait to go back, I wasn’t overly impressed by the Golden Circle. Loads of tourists aren’t my thing. Also, to be fair, I grew up near Yellowstone National Park, so I’ve experienced some pretty spectacular geysers, geothermal pools, and waterfalls.